Monthly Archives: March 2014

The below quote by Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force Executive Director Michael J. Bresnick is exactly a year old and look what has taken place since then. ARMS reports in your records can support your due diligence efforts.

“The reason that we are focused on financial institutions and payment processors is because they are the so-called bottlenecks, or choke-points, in the fraud committed by so many merchants that victimize consumers and launder their illegal proceeds. For example, third-party payment processors are frequently the means by which fraudulent merchants are able to get paid. They provide the scammers with access to the national banking system and facilitate the movement of money from the victim of the fraud to the scam artist. And financial institutions through which these fraudulent proceeds flow, we have seen, are not always blind to the fraud. In fact, we have observed that some financial institutions actually have been complicit in these schemes, ignoring their BSA/AML obligations, and either know about — or are willfully blind to — the fraudulent proceeds flowing through their institutions.”

Perhaps “Rachel” of Cardholder Services referred ‘John” to me? The FTC and Florida sued The Credit Voice et al. for harassing consumers with spam phone calls. “Many of the consumers who receive these unsolicited calls are elderly, live alone, and have limited or fixed incomes. They are often in poor health, suffer from memory loss… Read More

We have often seen those sanctioned by the FTC return to prohibited activities and, no doubt, with merchant accounts under different names. Yesterday I received a robocall from “Rachel of Cardholder Services.” On checking the number I found dozens of recent consumer complaints about the same call. I’m confident that the below defendants would not… Read More